Chapter Four
Adaline descended from her carriage, keeping her eyes down as she hurried toward Lucy’s shop.
It had been several weeks since anyone had laughed when they saw her, but she still got more than enough amused or pitying looks that she found it easiest to just avoid eye contact altogether.
Which helped most of the time, though she did grow tired of staring at the ground.
She had nearly reached the door when a blur with a shock of red hair barreled around the corner…and directly into her.
“Oof,” she said, grabbing her middle as the young page scurried about, retrieving the packages he’d dropped.
“I’m right sorry, miss,” the boy said, juggling his packages back into his arms before darting back down the street.
“Wait!” she called after him, stooping down to pick up a letter he’d dropped. “You forgot one!”
But the boy must not have heard her. Within moments, he was out of sight.
Adaline let out a sigh and turned back to the shop.
The little bell tinkled overhead and she entered, drawing the attention of the patrons who milled about inside.
Several glanced at her before looking away.
Lady Burrows gave her a brief smile before returning to her browsing. And no one laughed or pointed.
Well, perhaps her notoriety was finally behind her.
There had been an unfortunate (for her) dearth of scandal this season, making her salacious moment of humiliation last far longer than she’d hoped.
As of yet, the universe had not complied with her wishes and sunk Lord Hugo Brelsford—the architect of her misfortune—into the bottom of some abandoned well.
But she would settle for London society forgetting that she existed.
She made her way into the back of the shop where Lucy bustled about selecting beribboned and feathered bonnets and headpieces to show her patrons.
“Adaline,” she said, flashing her cousin a brilliant smile. “I am just packaging this gorgeous beauty for Lady Burrows,” she said, showing her a beautiful turban artfully bedecked in velvet ribbon and festooned with brightly dyed ostrich feathers.
“It’s lovely,” Adaline said with genuine appreciation. Lucy was a master at her craft.
“Have a seat, I am almost finished.”
Adaline sat, then looked at the letter she still held. The paper was good quality and was sealed with red wax stamped with the image of a peacock feather. She didn’t recognize the emblem. Hmm.
Upon turning it over, she discovered no address. Merely the word Grandmother, written in a strong masculine scrawl across the front.
“What do you have there?” Lucy asked.
“A letter. A page bumped into me outside the shop and must have dropped it. I wasn’t able to stop him before he ran off. Might you know him? He has a mop of bright red hair and freckles across his cheeks.”
Lucy shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. What will you do with it?”
Adaline gave her a mischievous grin and then broke the seal before Lucy could protest. Though she did anyway.
“Ada! That was not meant for you.”
“True, but perhaps we can discover who it was meant for by reading it,” she said.
Lucy shook her head, though there was great deal of affection in the exasperated look she threw Adaline’s way.
“You are incorrigible.” She headed toward the front of the shop, hat box under her arm. “I will return shortly.”
Adaline nodded, her attention already absorbed in the letter.
It was…unexpectedly sweet. Whoever had written it obviously loved his grandmother very much.
And he had a wonderful sense of humor. He seemed very much like someone she could be friends with.
And she could use a friend now. More than ever.
She spent most of that day and evening thinking about the letter and what to do with it before she finally made up her mind. She would write back to the anonymous author. And hope that she could find the page who had dropped it so that he could deliver both letters to him.
She sat down, thinking for a good long while before she finally threw caution to the wind and began to write.
The letter would be anonymous. She would not betray her identity, and she could not know his.
It was freeing, this pouring her heart out to a complete stranger.
Refreshing. She could only hope that she could find the page again, that he would actually be able to deliver it… and that letter-writer would respond.
Dear Anonymous Sir,
I pray you will forgive both the impertinence and the impropriety of my writing such a letter to you, being that we are perfect strangers.
Yet, it is just such a condition that permits me to dare to do so.
There is both intrigue and protection in such anonymity, I find.
One may do as one pleases without risk of consequence as no one will be the wiser.
Such a delicious temptation I could not resist. And I could not do other than to write even t’were that not the case, so that I may return such a sweet missive as the one which you had intended for your dear grandmother, which I have enclosed with this letter.
It is my dearest wish that she may yet receive it.
For such an affectionate note penned by such a dutiful grandson must surely raise an old woman’s spirits.
If you wonder—and how could you not—how I came to be in possession of your letter, I had a bit of a mishap with your page in front of Harrow’s Hats and Millinery Confections.
Neither Mrs. Harrow nor I knew for whom the boy worked.
Therefore, I must bow to the mercy of the Fates that I will come upon him again so that I might deliver this letter to you.
A roundabout and not at all assured method of correspondence, I’ll admit. But one which shall have to do.
Truthfully, even if I did know your identity, I would choose secrecy over revelation.
My brother, through whom all my correspondence must necessarily pass, would never condone such an improper endeavor as the one upon which I now embark.
Writing to a man unknown to me or my family?
Unheard of, I dare say. Yet I must confess I am rather reveling in the brazenness of it all.
I do hope you will not judge me too harshly for my momentary lapse in propriety.
I simply cannot resist the temptation to step outside societal and familial constraints, even if only for a moment.
I pray this letter finds you, and your grandmother—if it finds you at all—in the best of health and spirits.
Should you choose to write a letter in return, and I sincerely hope you do, have it delivered by page to Mrs. Harrow’s shop. She will see that it finds me. But I entreat you to instruct your servant not to betray your identity.
In that way I can remain, Anonymously Yours,
Miss Millinery
It took a week of haunting the streets near Lucy’s shop before Adaline saw that head of red hair again.
The boy seemed flustered when she gave him her letter, with the one to the letter-writer’s grandmother carefully enclosed, along with explicit instructions to give both to his master.
The addition of a shilling in his palm allayed his fears significantly.
He ran off with her letter tucked in his pocket.
Two days later, a smiling Lucy handed her a response.
Dear Miss Millinery,
I must inform you, for the sake of honesty, that I do find your boldness in writing to me exceptionally impertinent and highly inappropriate indeed.
However, in a fortuitous turn of chance, I quite enjoy impertinent and highly inappropriate activities, and therefore received your letter with immense pleasure.
I have not been so thoroughly amused in a very long time.
So much so that I have decided to multiply your impertinence and impropriety ten-fold and write to you in turn.
I do hope you’ll forgive me. Something tells me you will.
I thank you for the return of my letter; my grandmother likewise thanks you…
or would if she knew of you, which she will not as I have decided, for the sake of propriety, among other things, that our correspondence shall remain my very own closely held secret.
The loss of said letter was, unfortunately, the latest in a long line of lifetime mishaps.
Truly, I excel in such undertakings. My dear Grandmama often laments that my talents lie solely in the realms of mischief and mayhem.
But never has my bumbling brought me such good fortune as the written acquaintance of such a delightful lady.
I confess, I quite enjoy the anonymity as well.
It shall be interesting indeed to correspond with someone without sharing any personal details which might inadvertently give us away.
What fun! And what a relief to simply be oneself with no worries of judgment or consequences, without the constraints of Society or opinion of others to confine us.
It will be a novel, and I daresay welcome experience for us both, I have no doubt.
I thank you for the opportunity to indulge my mischievous side without further vexing my family.
However, as the last thing I wish to do is invoke the ire of your family, I shall likewise have my correspondence delivered, with strict instructions of anonymity, to the delightful Mrs. Harrow and pray that this letter finds you.
Indebtedly yours,
Mr. Mischief